We know where your Bitcoins went

With all the research that Ken did, it turns out that Bitcoin mining will not make you rich overnight and possibly cost you more money to create a bitcoin than you will ever see out of it. Now, according to a study linked to at Slashdot it seems that one of the big attractions of Bitcoins is not true. Researchers have found that with enough work and data, Bitcoin purchases are not anonymous. Anonymity was never a major goal for those who first envisioned Bitcoins but it has been touted as a major feature by those who have been mining and spending coins. If that is why you are interested in the process of mining maybe it is a better idea to switch to an @home project.

"Researchers from University College Dublin have conducted an analysis of anonymity on Bitcoin, and found it is not inherently anonymous, and that in many cases, users and their transactions can be identified. They use techniques such as context discovery and flow analysis to investigate and visualize an alleged theft of Bitcoins, which, at the time of the theft, had a market value of approximately half a million U.S. dollars."